The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has updated the guidance it provides to governments for measuring its greenhouse-gas emissions, including flows of carbon into and out of land systems.

16 May 2019 | When climate negotiators meet in Bonn next month for their mid-year science and policy conference, they’ll have a slew of new guidance from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) regarding the methodology that governments use to estimate their greenhouse gas emissions and removals as required under the Paris Agreement.

The new guidance builds on and expands the IPCC’s 2006 guidance, which countries already use to develop their inventories.

Volume 4 of the report focuses on Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU), and the overview chapter shows new guidance for evaluating models in those countries whose land-use accounting is most advanced, as well as a new section on differentiating between man-made disturbances and natural impacts.

The new guidance also includes more detailed approaches to measuring biomass in forests, farms, and fields, as well as the impacts of tillage management on soil health.

Declan Foraise is a retired forester who primarily covers land use issues in Europe and Latin America.